The X-Axis – 11 February 2026
Last week, five books. Next week, five books (including both X-Men titles and two Wolverine books). This week… well, Marvel would say two, but I don’t count Deadpool as an X-book for the same reason that I don’t count Alpha Flight. He’s his own thing, and there’s no reason to think that’s changing. So, no, I still don’t count Deadpool.
So.
CYCLOPS #1. By Alex Paknadel, Rogê Antônio, Fer Sifuentes-Sujo & Joe Caramagna. Always nice to see Alex Paknadel getting an outing beyond the Infinity Comics. Antônio did a few issues of Hellions back in the Krakoan era, and he worked on the previous Deadpool run. I like his work – it’s shiny and dynamic but also makes things like the Reavers’ assembly lab suitably bleak. And he gives Scott an impassive self-control that contrasts with everyone else.
There are good reasons why we don’t get many Cyclops solo stories – his defining characteristic is team leadership, and by definition a solo story takes him away from that. But it can work occasionally, as something that forces the character out of his comfort zone.
So what have we got here? Well, after a brief intro to remind us that Scott sees himself as running a team of soldiers, we get Scott meeting up with Dr Hanover – the nice one from Sinister’s orphanage – to see the orphanage site finally being cleared. Hanover still doesn’t know that there was anything behind the orphanage, but does see it as an abusive regime that she didn’t do enough to stop. The more interesting idea here is that while Scott believes that Sinister fails to break his spirit, Hanover thinks that it absolutely did, and that he started off much less repressed. That’s actually an angle worth exploring, as is the idea that Scott has just blithely written off this presumably formative period of his life as a minor piece of continuity that doesn’t come up very often.
Quite what this has to do with the rest of the story – which sees Scott being shot out of the sky by some overenthusiastic new Reavers, forcing Pierce to try his bunch of rookie cyborgs against Scott – is less obvious. Paknadel seems to be repositioning Pierce into more of a U-Men figure, who want to harness mutants for parts rather than kill them. And I guess that makes more sense for his cyborg gimmick, particularly given the sort of allies he’s had in the past. I suppose the idea is we’re going to get Pierce as the leader, and Scott as the lone wolf. But how that ties in with the orphanage material, it’s hard to say. Still, it’s a pretty strong first issue, all told.
> This week… well, Marvel would say two, but I don’t count Deadpool as an X-book
They might even say THREE! (The last issue if Momoko’s Ultimate X-Men)
At least Marvel doesn’t have to worry about the Cyclops book being lost amid the new launches and ending up getting cancelled. Wait, what? It’s a mini? Oh, nevermind.
I’m not liking the opening scene. The idea is that AIM has a weapon that only works on mutants. So Scott orders Illyana to stay away and sends Juggernaut, who’s not a mutant, after AIM. But Illyana charges in, followed by Quentin, and predictably the two of them get in trouble so Scott can rescue them. The “someone gets in trouble by disobeying orders” plot only works if the reason for the orders isn’t obvious. Illyana is not a complete idiot. If a weapon only works on mutants, she shouldn’t need Scott to explain why she should stay back and let Juggernaut handle it.
“Hanover still doesn’t know that there was anything behind the orphanage,”
That’s odd. Toward the end of Classic X-Men 42, Robyn Hanover suddenly awakes to find Sinister confronting her. On the next page, we see that Hanover is dressed more conservatively and is colder towards Scott. Now, it’s not clear what happened to her. Claremont seemed to say in an interview that Sinister put her in suspended animation and replaced her with a clone. But an alternate reading is that she was under some sort of mind control. She seems to have aged normally, so if she was in suspended animation she didn’t stay in there for very long. But it’s odd that she doesn’t seem to remember meeting Sinister. (She does say that everyone who spent time at the orphanage has gaps. But still.) Paknadel doesn’t seem to have read Classic X-Men 42 very well. Especially since in that story Robyn was only able to find out the barest of details about Alex but in this issue she seems to no the lengths Scott went to protect him.
Speaking of which, I’m not sure how I feel about the “11-year old Scott set a fire while trying to protect Alex from Sinister” retcon. Paknadel has said that he sees Scott and Wolverine having more in common than they care to admit.
I’m not buying the way Scott’s visor shattered. The idea is that his visor was damaged in a fall. But any impact strong enough to damage his visor should be enough to kill or cripple Scott. (Yes, I know he was concussed but still.) I realize that different writers have different opinions about how durable ruby quartz is- Louise Simonson had Cameron Hodge trap Scott and Hank in a room made of ruby quartz and Hank was unable to break out. That struck me as a bit too much- ruby quartz is immune to Scott’s powers, not everybody’s. But Scott’s visor is incredibly durable.
Speaking of which, I didn’t like the way the artist depicted the visor shattering. It made it look like Scott’s eye beams were destroying everything around him, including things BEHIND him, which isn’t the way it’s supposed to work.
“Quite what this has to do with the rest of the story – which sees Scott being shot out of the sky by some overenthusiastic new Reavers, forcing Pierce to try his bunch of rookie cyborgs against Scott – is less obvious. ”
My guess is that Scott finds himself resorting to increasingly ruthless methods to protect the girl from Pierce, just like he set the orphanage on fire to protect Alex.
Regarding Deadpool, it DOES have the Shadows of Tomorrow banner on it, so maybe it should count as an X-Book. Without spoiling anything, there’s one aspect of the story that I imagine will be very controversial.
“there’s one aspect of the story that I imagine will be very controversial.”
Benjamin Percy?
BTW, the next arc for Jed MacKay’s X-Men is called Danger Room. I’ve seen readers speculating on the internet that one of the villains behind it is Maxine Danger. If this is true, I’m seriously wondering about MacKay’s writing process. Did he come up with the title first, go looking for a villain with Danger in his or her name and spend hours looking for a villain with Room in his name before finally giving up?
Something I only recently realized is that the completely different account of Scott’s relationship with Nate (intended to be the mutant boy behind Sinister) that we get in Louise Simonson’s X-Factor and Claremont’s Classic X-Men is deliberate. Simonson has Scott remember Nate as a bully. The CXM backups present Nate as Scott’s possibly only friend at the orphanage, with suggestions of a crush on Nate’s part. Scott misremembers Nate because Sinister/Nate has tampered with his memories, presumably to disguise his own vulnerability. Ancient history now, but Simonson and Claremont were more in synch than I knew.
It’s odd that Cyclops thinks starting a fire to protect Alex doesn’t sound like him. Scott is generally willing to do whatever it takes to protect mutantkind. Child soldiers, working with villains, assassination squads… a fire is pretty tame.
Unless Scott meant that it doesn’t sound like him to care that much about Alex. Which is fair.
“It’s odd that Cyclops thinks starting a fire to protect Alex doesn’t sound like him. Unless Scott meant that it doesn’t sound like him to care that much about Alex.”
He should set Alex on fire to test whether he cares enough to piss on him.
P.S. I know that isn’t quite what the expression means, but if he doesn’t have an extinguisher handy…
I often forget how much of a whipping boy Claremont made of Scott.
And then I am reminded.
How was he a whipping boy?
It started in the “Classic X-Men” continuity inserts. Some of those go to ludicrous lenghts to make Scott look like a loser – particularly if Wolverine is around to look cool by comparison.
This issue reminds me of that for some reason that I can’t quite pinpoint – perhaps there is some aspect to the original Mr. Sinister scenes that raises a red flag to me.
I suppose I should just accept that Claremont had no interest in writing Cyclops.
What do you mean? Cyclops was the main character in the Claremont run until his marriage. The first quarter of Claremont’s X-Men comic is the story of Scott Summers growing up, until he’s an adult and moves away from the X-Men to go live his own life with his wife and child.
It is Claremont who makes Cyclops look “cool” for the first time in the character’s history by showing that he can defeat the entire X-Men team by himself.
It’s only after Claremont has finished Scott’s story that Claremont makes Scott lose bad…at the expense of Ororo, not Logan. Then, Scott is dragged back into the X-Men universe with all the baggage and bad decisions revolving around the creation of X-Factor and the return of Jean Grey when Claremont is forced to start using Scott again, when he didn’t want to as he had finished that story.
In addition to what Chris mentioned above, I think Claremont just wanted characters to come and go from the series over time as people come and go from workplaces, sports teams, etc, in real life. As the last OG in the group, Scott was the obvious choice for a depiction of a character moving on. Granted, having Scott marry a ringer for his dead girlfriend doesn’t exactly scream, “I’ve moved on.” and Claremont can be (and has been) criticized for that choice, but it wasn’t the first nor last bizarre creative choice Claremont ever made.
Iceman. Now, that’s a character Claremont appeared to have no interest in writing. Of all the originals, Iceman was the character who appeared least often throughout Claremont’s first run. And when Claremont came back for his second run, he inherited a large cast from Alan Davis and evidently wanted to make room for a couple of his own additions to the cast, so he made a couple of cuts: Marrow (understandable) and Iceman.
“It’s only after Claremont has finished Scott’s story that Claremont makes Scott lose bad…”
And by necessity really. X-Factor #1 came out the very next month. Claremont intended to retire Scott one way or another even had X-Factor had not come to pass. I think the silly duel was just to hurry it along.
I still don’t understand how the outcome of a duel between two people determines which of the two is the better leader. I’ve never had to fight anyone for a management position before.
Come to think of it, that could make for a pretty funny story. Storm is accustomed to having to fight someone else for a leadership role, right? So, you have Storm a get a real job somewhere. Then you have her boss announce to her and one of her fellow co-workers that they’re both candidates for an upper management position and have Storm react to this news by immediately proceeding to beat the shit out of her co-worker as her boss looks on in horror.
Then, after getting fired, Storm returns home just in time to witness Scott setting Alex on fire for some reason.
Moo brings up a good point – is Storm the only classic X-Man who’s never had a job?
Iceman was an accountant, Beast worked for the Rand corporation as a scientist, Warren was a CEO, Phoenix had some job after leaving the team the first time, and Cyclops was a pilot.
Nightcrawler was a priest, Colossus was a farmer and a painter, Banshee was a cop, Wolverine was a soldier, Kitty was a bartender. I don’t recall Thunderbird or Sunfire having jobs, but they also left the team immediately.
Storm’s resume is:
* Thief
* Goddess
* Regent of Sol
It’s good that she gets to always be a leader, because she would have a hard time getting a job.
@John You forgot Queen of Wakanda.
Her resume and skills qualify her for being James Bond or a Bond Villain. Forge is either Q or her henchman.
Don’t forget that in the first issue of Ayodele’s Storm, there was chatter by the media about Ororo possibly announcing her run for Congress. But he wrote the media as immediately leaving when she said “I lied, it was a mutant that destroyed (I forget where)” instead of them immediately asking her harsh questions.
“Moo brings up a good point…”
Figures. I can never seem to do this intentionally. Only when I’m joking around.
“…is Storm the only classic X-Man who’s never had a job?”
Did she ever teach regular school classes at any version of the school? You know, like she did in the films? (I think she was seen teaching a history class in the first film). If so, I guess she could claim that she’s held a real job before.
But even then, it’s a mutant school. So, not really an ordinary job. I think it would be a nice change to see her actually try to experience a taste of every day life among the people she’s been trying to peacefully co-exist with.
Wonder Woman got a job at a fast food restaurant in the ‘90s.
Cyclops: “In the first, you try to overwhelm me… In the second, you get to walk away with your teeth. What’s it going to be?”
AIM: *attacks him*
Cyclops: “The second it is, then.”
The editors are really asleep at the wheel, eh?
@Chris V – And if she kept that job, she could’ve been a supervisor by now.
I think “thief” is Gambit’s only job credential too. And did Psylocke ever have a job other than ninja assassin? Some thin resumes there.
Remy was the lead singer with a glam rock band in Seattle, the Sinister Gambit, managed by Essex.
Which Psylocke? Betsy was a model.
And if you mean Kwannon, in her thirty-three year existence so far, Kwannon was dead for twenty-four of those years. She has a better excuse than most X-Men for never having a real job (unless she stayed dead that long just because she didn’t want to look for a job).
@Chris V, Moo- X-Men/ Alpha Flight 1-2 and Uncanny X-Men 200-201 came out around the same time but the former was written by Claremont before he found out about X-Factor and the latter was written by Claremont after he found out about X-Factor. The difference is obvious- in X-Men/ Alpha Flight Scott is sympathetic and competent, in Uncanny X-Men 200-201, not so much.
Regarding Iceman, Byrne has said he wanted to use iceman during his and Claremont’s run on X-Men but someone else had claimed him and not used him. Claremont didn’t use him much after though. (Admittedly, Bobby was on other teams for much of that time.)
Jean worked as a model during Arnold Drake’s brief run on the X-Men. She’s the only one of the Original Five without a consistent civilian skillset.
Regarding the other ’80s X-Men- Rogue worked as a waitress when she left the X-Men after Age of Apocalypse. Dazzler was a singer, Longshot briefly worked as an actor after he came to Earth and Forge was a soldier and inventor.
Did Rachel ever have a real job?
It might have been hard for her to show any ID or have a bank account. “I’ll be born ten years from now…if my dad and dead mom can…choke, sob…get back together by then. Daddy, why!”
@Michael – Bobby wasn’t any less available to Claremont than Warren was during his first run. They were in Champions and Defenders together.
And when Claremont came back, he kicked Bobby to the curb. I always thought that was strange. You think it would’ve occurred to him that he’d never done anything with him before. Maybe it did occur to him, but he just wasn’t interested
As for Uncanny 201, I don’t know why Claremont didn’t have Scott simply announce that he’d be taking some time off. After all, he had just become a father. Between that and X-Factor 1, it seemed like Scott thought the term “family leave” meant something else entirely.
@Michael- Whoops. Sorry, that bit about Iceman being claimed and not used for (however long it was) sailed right over my head. Okay, so that’s a good enough excuse for the length of Byrne’s tenure, at least (though it was Byrne’s idea to bring him in, not Claremont’s)
@Moo- Byrne said this on his website:
” Iceman was the only original X-Man not to find his way back into the fold even as a guest. Was there any particular reason why Iceman was passed over?”
“The simplest reason of all. As I discovered in my days working with him in THE CHAMPIONS, Iceman is surprisingly hard to draw. It was not until HIDDEN YEARS that I “found” a version I was happy with.”
“Given that Beast and Angel were involved in the Fate of the Phoenix, and that Jean Grey wears her Marvel Girl uniform in that story, how did the decision NOT to include Iceman in that storyline actually come about?”
“As I recall, Bobby was “tied up” in a miniseries project that never came out.
Back then, people would often lay claim to characters (especially villains) and no one could use them because something was “in the works” — and then never happened. ”
So Claremont did have difficulties using Bobby early on that he didn’t have with Warren.
By the time Claremont wrote Uncanny X-Men 201, he knew that Scott was leaving Maddie in X-Factor 1. So he had to foreshadow that somehow.
@Chris V – I always assumed Rachel used forged identification/papers. And I also assumed that Forge was the one who forged them for her, even after he tried explaining to her that this wasn’t why he was called Forge.
@Moo- BTW, I was wrong about Bynre wanting to bring him in. Sorry.
@Michael – No, quite okay. And that bit you wrote about Bobby being claimed didn’t register in my brain on my first read as I noted above, but it looks like you were into your next post by then.
It’s rather odd that Iceman would be tied up for a miniseries project back in 1980, though. Especially since Marvel didn’t publish minis back then.
Claremont did use Iceman once, during the second Cockrum tenure, as one of the “reserve X-Men” (with Banshee, Havok, and Polaris) in Uncanny X-Men #146 as they try to rescue the X-Men from Murderworld.
It doesn’t seem as if Claremont had much interest in doing anything with Angel or Beast either. He used Angel more than those other two originals, but the things he did with Angel were…not very nice. Angel gets out in a bird cage in that Murderworld story. The near-rape scene and wing clipping of Angel by Callisto. Warren actually being the one made to look like a loser in comparison to Logan’s being so cool. Iceman got off pretty well not being treated in the manner of Angel by Claremont.
Moo-I wonder if Byrne is misremembering the Bizarre Adventures Iceman solo story (1981) which set up the new status quo for Bobby, attending university to become an accountant. Maybe he was being kept mostly hands off because Marvel thought they might have some sort of plan for him involving that direction.
@Chris V – Yeah, but Beast was already appearing regularly in Avengers. He couldn’t do anything with Beast if he wanted to apart from have him guest-star. He certainly seemed happy to get his hands on him again when he came back, until he had to hand him over to Morrison after claiming him for X-Treme.
But yeah, it did appear that Claremont only used Warren whenever he felt like he reminding Warren of how much he sucks.
Although, unlike with Iceman, he didn’t toss Warren aside when he returned to X-Men. He just made Warren break up with Betsy so he could hook her up with Neal Shaara instead.
Hmmm. I suppose that’s not a good use of Warren either.
And you’re probably right about the Bizarre Adventures thing. That makes more sense.
Presumably, between Charles, Jean, Rachel and Emma, you can do the old Psychic Paper trick when someone needs to show paperwork like a resume or ID.
How did Morrison end up getting Beast away from Claremont when Claremont was able to claim he already had Rogue and Gambit for X-Treme when Morrison wanted to use them? Was it a case that the editors didn’t like Morrison’s ideas for Rogue and Gambit? Was it a case of Marvel’s editors deciding to allow Claremont to keep some of the team he selected, rather than lose three of his choices? Was it a trade where Morrison said that Claremont could keep Rogue and Gambit but in return New X-Men needed Beast?
@Mark, um… Coaleo
Don’t even need the Psychic Paper trick when you can just do the old Jedi mind trick “You don’t need to see my identification.”
In any case, mind tricks are only of limited use. They aren’t going to be of much help when it comes to having to mail in forms or submit them online.
@Chris V – If memory serves, it was a case of Morrison wanting to have a character in his cast who could explain scientific gobbledy-gook and originally selecting Moira MacTaggart for this role… until he was belatedly told that he couldn’t use her because she was now dead. He then requested Beast and so Claremont had to give him up because Morrison was the priority.
@Chris V – As for Rogue and Gambit, Morrison wasn’t interested in using either. He didn’t find Claremont’s portrayal of a woman who wasn’t able to safely have physical human contact to be very convincing. He felt she was too bombastic. He actually wanted to introduce a new Rogue. That idea later sort of morphed into Angel Salvatore.
And he just plain didn’t like Gambit.
I can understand Morrison being the priority. That’s why it always surprised me that Claremont was able to claim Rogue and Gambit before Morrison, as apparently Morrison had to rewrite some of the original ideas after finding out that Rogue and Gambit were going to X-Treme (which, maybe it was for the best, as the Gambit and Rogue ideas didn’t sound the best). It might have been a case of “How well will this Grant Morrison’s New X-Men sell?” before the first issue versus “New X-Men is doing so good we have to give that book Beast.” after a few months of Morrison on the title.
If only Morrison knew about the Shi’ar golem and that Moira was just in hiding planning the creation of Krakoa.
Moo-Right. I know Morrison found Rogue unconvincing and wanted to kill her to replace her with a new character called “Rogue” who’d better fit as a “woman who can’t be touched”. It was still an idea Morrison wanted to do with Rogue, but Claremont had already claimed Rogue.
As far as Gambit, I read that Morrison had plans to make Gambit lose control of his powers and become a being of pure electricity.
@Chris V – It was very likely the “killing Rogue” part that ultimately allowed Claremont to keep her. Morrison or not, I can understand Marvel drawing a line there, especially given that they were touting their “dead is dead” policy (resurrecting Moira was also off the table).
Never heard the Gambit electricity thing before. I do remember reading Morrison’s website back then where he responded to a reader who happened to mention that he (the reader) didn’t like Gambit by saying, “I don’t like Gambit either.”
OK, I found a web-site with the archives of Morrison’s original pitches for New X-Men. It looks like Morrison initially proposed killing off Rogue and replacing her with a new “Rogue”, but Claremont nixed the idea saying that they couldn’t kill Rogue. Morrison reworked the idea with the plans for Gambit, saying it would switch their roles, with Gambit learning what it was like to not be able to be touched and now living proverbially in Rogue’s shoes. Marvel editorial did really like this idea and apparently greenlit this direction for New X-Men, only to have Claremont step in and say he had already claimed Rogue and Gambit for X-Treme. Morrison had to rewrite some New X-Men’s original ideas.
So, I’m going to say it was a case of Marvel at first not knowing how popular Grant Morrison’s X-Men would be and once they found out, Claremont’s wanting to use Beast no longer had any pull.
@Moo- I found the article:
https://comicsxf.com/2019/10/01/which-x-man-was-grant-morrison-going-to-kill-on-genosha/
Hmm. Interesting.
Incidentally, Claremont had already plotted a year’s worth of stories involving Beast when he got the news that it was no longer his character. This is where things stood at the time according to him…
“The Beast stayed in our first arc because Salvador Larroca had already drawn it,” Claremont told Comics Creators On X-Men, “but I had to rewrite everything else. So suddenly, the Savage Land arc, which was all about the Beast, became all about Storm.”
@Michael- Oh, thanks for that. I’ll give that a read.